The Cat
by Ramiel the Scrivener
Summary: To his credit, James drops everything. Literally.


**DISCLAIMER:** All characters are property of J.K. Rowling, et al. All standard disclaimers apply.**  
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**The Cat**

"I'm pregnant." Lily says.

To his credit, James drops everything. Literally. Oranges roll with apples and the juice from the now-broken jar of pickles oozes around a tub of ice cream (one of Lily's eight last-minute requests before James set off for the grocer's and not the only one that suddenly makes a startling amount of sense) and James does not even want to think about what's happened to the bananas, which is suddenly the funniest word James knows and he hopes his son (because it'll be a boy, just you wait) will think so too.

"You know what this means, right?" Lily continues.

James shakes his head, not because he doesn't know but because he can't pick any one thing—this changes everything.

"We have to get a cat," she says as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

James gapes for a moment before his brain starts to work again.

"You're mad," he says, but she smiles because from the way he says it she knows it's secret man code for 'I'm stupid in love with you.'

"I say we go now," she decides for them, grabbing James's hand and leading him to the fireplace, groceries and wet stuffs long forgotten. She grabs a fistful of Floo powder and thrusts it into the fire, shouting "Diagon Alley!" and vanishing in a whirl of green flame.

James wonders if Flooing is good for the baby and resolves to get Lily on a broomstick that isn't his and oh Merlin, he realises, he can't be making those jokes now that he's going to be a Responsible Father.

It also occurs to him that broomsticks (the literal, not the phallic type) are not particularly baby-friendly either, but by then he is on his way to Diagon Alley, where his wife has already brushed the soot off her clothes (and if James squints and tilts his head a little to the left he can almost see the new roundness to his wife's belly and he will never ever mention it for fear of losing his ability to give his firstborn a sibling) and is stomping cheerfully towards Magical Menagerie like a half-addled crusader.

James has almost caught up to her when he backtracks and realises he has been thinking with parentheses and vows to kill Remus Lupin.

None of this makes sense, he knows, but yet it feels so right. He decides to go with it, at least until Lily gets her cat. Their cat. Their as in three—James, Lily, and Baby Whose Indubitably Masculine Name Is to Be Determined.

Holy Merlin's bones and bollocks, he was going to be a _father_.

When James finally stumbles into the shop, Lily has already worked her way through half the cats and all the pretty ones—this, James supposes, is the end result of hanging out with Severus Snape and then marrying him. More than enough pretty in her life, so she begins to miss the ugly. And greasy. And potentially immersed in the Dark Arts to an unhealthy degree, including but not limited to an interesting tattoo on the left forearm. Slimeball.

He was going to be a _father_.

"I like that one!" Lily yelps loudly, pointing a magically manicured hand towards the ugliest cat James has ever seen, a creature that looks like what might occur if McGonagall's cat form had a threesome with a Kneazle and a brick wall. A temperamental beast, too, judging by the way it is hissing and spitting at the owner as the shopkeeper silently prays to something and reaches into the cage. Fortunately for all concerned, she is wearing very thick protective gloves, made of something that James resolves to ask about so he can have _every last bit _of his son's clothing made from it because that hideous thing is _not_ maiming the Potter good looks, obviously a key component of the Potter charm which has done James so much good (as evidenced by the fact that he is here, alive, and has got Lily Evans, easily the fittest girl to ever attend Hogwarts, in the club and oh her name is _Potter_ now, take that Snape) and will doubtlessly serve his son equally well.

James thrusts what Galleons he has left over at the shopkeeper, who has apparently never seen so much paid for such an ugly cat that she simply stares at the sack for a moment before reaching to make change. Lily has already walked out the door, cat in her arms, so James simply follows her, leaving the woman to do what she wished with the Galleons which don't matter in the least because Lily is happy and _he is going to be a father_.

"Sirius for godfather, or Peter?" James asks. "Or Remus? But he'll be bad at spoiling the boy—he'll get books from Uncle Moony no matter what."

"I was thinking we ought to try Severus," Lily replies wickedly, a glint in her emerald eyes that tells James that ugly-arse cat or not, he is going to be one happy Potter.

"That is simply uncalled for," James says, playing along with mock horror. "If something were to happen to us and Snape (he refrains from calling him Snivellus because he loves his wife and cat and _is going o be a father_) were to take our son in, he would never learn how to wash my trademark tousled hair. Can you imagine my hair if I didn't wash it?"

"I'd rather not, thank you."

"Remus still has nightmares about it, I think, from that week we spent camping in the Black Mountains."

"By the way, don't think I haven't noticed all those 'the boy' and 'our son' comments. Just for that, I'm drinking a Castration Concoction to make sure it's a girl."

"There's no such thing," James says boldly, though he isn't sure himself.

"I'm sorry, which of us burst into the Slug Club on sheer Potions talent, not merely a penchant for Holyhead Harpies trivia and tossing a big red ball through a hoop?"

James balks. "You wouldn't dare."

"Wouldn't I?"

And for the first time in a long while, Voldemort and his Death Eaters seem unimportant. All James can worry about is whether his wife is brewing a potion to emasculate his firstborn in the womb and the nagging problem of—

"So I was wondering, Lily, what do we name this cat of ours?" He knows from the sudden shininess in her eyes that 'ours' was the best possessive pronoun he could have used and once again thanks the Potter charm and the Potter hair (which certainly couldn't have hurt his choice of pronouns).

Lily looks at him and smiles. "Don't be silly, James. He's not exactly a kitten—he already has a name."

"What is it?"

She leans into him and he puts an arm around her shoulders as the cat swishes its ginger bottlebrush tail up and down James's front.

"Crookshanks."


End file.
